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The United States is to Blame for the Cold War

The US is to blame for the Cold War

From when World War II ended in 1945 all the way up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War dominated international affairs. It was a global struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although the Cold War was sometimes fought on the battlefield, it involved everything from political rhetoric to sports. Overshadowing all was the threat of nuclear war. From an American perspective the Cold War was largely a ‘war on communism’ – this outlook by the US caused and sustained the Cold War. The US is to blame for the Cold War for demonizing of the communist Soviet Union in support of our own political and economic systems.

At the end of WWII, the Soviet Union had sustained tremendous casualties and the country was almost destroyed. In order for Russia to be able to protect itself in the future, it would need to be surrounded by countries that would be loyal to Soviet Russia. The countries would serve as a buffer zone to stop possible future invading armies. The Soviet takeover of Poland was a defensive maneuver to protect Russia, not an offensive to convert Europe to communism like America assumed.

US Soviet relations were further worsened by the atomic bomb. Even though we had been allies during WWII, we had not told the Soviets about the atomic bomb. We had worked in total secrecy and kept Russia in the darkness about our progress. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first indication to Russia that we had nuclear power. By not telling the Soviets, we were telling them that we did not want them to have nuclear weapons and that we did not consider them a strong ally. Russia began to fear us, and consequently tensions mounted between the USSR and America.

In a conference at Yalta, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed on terms of how Europe was going to be governed; there would be free elections throughout Europe and the Soviets would have control over some of Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union was not granted the right to rule the new countries as it wanted, there would be mandatory elections, which might throw away the power of Russia there. Although Stalin did not allow completely free elections in the European countries now under Soviet influence, it was...